The Carbonfree® Business Partnership program makes it affordable for businesses of all sizes and on any budget to enhance sustainability by neutralizing estimated annual carbon emissions from business operations.

Our newest Carbonfree® Business Partner, VitaDepot.com, recognized the benefits of the program and the parallel with its own mission to make healthy living available to anyone, on any budget. VitaDepot provides the finest organic and natural products, including all the top brands for vitamins, supplements, whole foods, sports nutrition and more, at the best price possible to its online customers. The company is dedicated to supporting customers in their efforts to live a healthier lifestyle by offering supplements that are organic and free of genetically modified organisms (GMO), pesticides, and other chemicals.

“People want to eat healthier, feel better and live longer,” explains Jesse Tomalty, Co-Founder of VitaDepot. “This not only includes supporting our customers in their efforts to live a healthier lifestyle, it also includes making the world a greener, more sustainable and clean place to live.”

VitaDepot works to minimize its impact on the environment and to make the world a greener and more sustainable place to live. Besides partnering with the Carbonfund.org to mitigate its operational emissions, VitaDepot:

purchases shipping materials that are biodegradable and that have been made from recycled material;

recycles or reuses all bubble wrap, boxes, paper, packaging peanuts and other shipping material received from our product manufacturers; and

minimizes packaging materials by using boxes and shipping materials that are more properly sized to the items.

Carbonfund.org welcomes VitaDepot to the Carbonfree® Business Partnership program and encourages other businesses and individuals to “reduce what you can, offset what you can’t™”.

For over 28 years, Hornblower Cruises & Events has been the premier yacht charter and public dining cruise company in Southern California. With the largest fleet of luxury entertainment yachts in Los Angeles and Orange County, Hornblower prides itself on exceeding expectations with uncompromising quality and exceptional service.

Hornblower joined the Carbonfree® Business Partnership program in 2008 by calculating and offsetting the emissions from their office and charter boat operations at their Newport Beach facilities, which serves the greater Los Angeles region. Through the Carbonfree® Business Partnership, Hornblower supports carbon emission reductions achieved through energy efficiency, renewable energy and forestry projects around the world. In addition, Hornblower has taken the unique step of offering a path for their own customers to join their efforts to “Respect Our Planet”, by giving them an opportunity to offset their own carbon footprint related to cruising with Hornblower, as part of the ticket price.

Maintaining their Carbonfree® Partnership program is part of Hornblower’s corporate environmental outreach program, Respect Our Planet, which guides the company’s principles and programs. Through Respect Our Planet, Hornblower is committed to conducting operations in the most environmentally friendly methods possible, educating along with motivating tour guests to make positive changes in their lives and creating outreach and education around the preservation of the habitats in the communities they serve.

Spring is here, snow is melting in the northern regions… and lawn care season is just around the corner! For homeowners in the Fairport/Rochester, NY, area, there’s a new choice for mowing and lawn care service that’s committed to Carbonfree® operations.

Carbon Cutters is a multifaceted lawn care service provider offering environmentally responsible and organic lawn care services. The company’s pledge to sustainability can be seen in all aspects of its business practices, including a recent decision to join Carbonfund.org’s Carbonfree® Business Partnership program.

“At Carbon Cutters, we take the environment into consideration with every aspect of our business, from the tools we use to the shirts we wear,” explains Steve Popp, Owner. “We use all electric equipment that will be charged by solar power. We use only environmentally friendly and organic techniques for lawn fertilization. We have partnered with Carbonfund.org to help us offset whatever carbon we generate from our daily business.”

Carbon Cutters was created after recognizing the negative impact of conventional lawn care industry on the environment and seeking to provide a carbon neutral alternative. As Steve puts it, “At Carbon Cutters, we cut the carbon and the chemicals, but never the quality!” Carbonfund.org applauds Carbon Cutters’ commitment to environmental sustainability and creating a clean alternative to traditional lawn care practices.

One cup of premium loose leaf tea inspired Beth Johnston to get into the tea business, and environmental responsibility drives the company’s commitment to organic teas, sustainability practices and Carbonfree® business operations.

“Conserving our planet’s precious resources has always been a personal concern for me. With our continued expansion, both importing and shipping customer orders, I felt a further responsibility to take it on corporately,” says Beth Johnston, Founder and CEO. “We had been looking for an effective way to offset the impact Teas Etc. has on the environment but also wanted to give our customers the choice to offset theirs. We did our homework, looked at a couple of different options and decided that Carbonfund.org was the right partner to help us meet our goals.”

For the seventh consecutive year, Teas Etc. is offsetting its own carbon footprint with Carbonfund.org by supporting renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects. In an effort to generate greater awareness about sources of carbon emissions, Teas Etc. offers customers the option of offsetting the carbon footprint created by shipping their orders. To date, Teas Etc. and its customers have neutralized the same quantity of emissions as would be sequestered by almost 11,000 tree seedlings grown for ten years.

Teas Etc is has provided premium quality award winning teas and modern accessories to wholesale and retail customers for over 15 years. The company is USDA certified to package and to distribute organic products, and has a complete line of organic teas. In addition to their tea line, the company manufactures the innovative, award winning Tea Traveler® that allows tea drinkers to enjoy loose leaf teas on-the-go. The company opened in 1998 with its headquarters in Palm Beach, FL has an office in Nanjing, China and a permanent show room at AmericasMart in Atlanta, GA.

Environmentally-responsible companies in the cosmetics industry face a challenge to ensure that their products contain healthy, safe and sustainably sourced ingredients. Southern California-based EnvyDerm Cosmetics takes this responsibility seriously, and recently took the additional step to become a Carbonfree® Business Partner, neutralizing its estimated annual operational emissions by supporting forestry projects through Carbonfund.org.

EnvyDerm Cosmetics is a high performance cosmetics company that manufactures healthy good-for-you eye and lip products using natural and organic ingredients and eco-friendly packages. EnvyDerm continues to grow with a passion to offer a complete eyelash and lip enhancement product line that is safe, scientifically proven and fits a wide array of customers' needs.

"We strive to create cosmetics products that are healthy and good for you with less impact on the environment,” stresses Nadia Smith, Founder and CEO. “Partnering with Carbonfund.org is a natural step in our advocacy efforts and a step further in our effort to not just beautify our customers but further contribute to beautify Earth."

Part of EnvyDerm’s mission is to keep the planet beautiful and clean for the future. The company works hard to implement sustainable and eco-friendly measures to reduce its environment impact. That’s why they manufacture locally in California, source eco-friendly packaging that is made from 100% recycled material, and source organic ingredients for products as much as possible. These commitments along with their Carbonfree® operations set EnvyDerm above conventional cosmetics companies as a more environmentally responsible choice for its customers.

2014 is shaping up to be another strong year for continued environmental leadership by Carbonfund.org’s business partners. These companies understand the value in maintaining effective sustainability programs that demonstrate their commitment to environmental responsibility.

Entering its fifth year as a Carbonfree® Business Partner, Software for Good is a design-driven software engineering team producing complete digital solutions for companies doing great things.

“We are thrilled to be part of the Carbonfree® Business Partnership,” states Casey Helbling, founder and CEO of Software for Good. “By calculating, reducing, and offsetting our carbon footprint, we are helping to change the status quo and redefine what it means to be a responsible business.”

To date, Software for Good’s carbon emissions offset donations have supported Carbonfund.org’s carbon reduction projects, neutralizing the same quantity of emissions as are created by a standard passenger car driving almost 600,000 miles.

Software for Good team members and clients share a vision for what a healthy and sustainable community can be. They follow the triple bottom line business model, investing equally in people, planet, and profit.

A great example of Software for Good’s work can be seen in the rebuild for RE-AMP’s website. The organization is composed of over 150 non-profits and foundations across the US Midwest focused on climate change and energy policy. The new website focuses on user engagement and easy ongoing site maintenance, so that the various groups can work collaboratively to create a healthier, more sustainable world.

Software for Good demonstrates its environmental stewardship through the work it performs for its clients and in its continuing commitment to carbon-neutral operations through the Carbonfree® Business Partnership program.

David and Victoria Byrnes have worked with organic and fair trade producers for over 12 years, helping other brands launch their products nationally. After seeing there were so few organic snack options on grocery shelves for their own family, they decided to launch their very own brand. With hard work and perseverance, and a focus on organic and Non-GMO Verified products, they launched Good Boy Organics in 2012, featuring BOPS (Baked Organic Potato Snacks), Organicasaurus corn puffs, and Yellow Barn Biodynamic® sauces.

As part of their commitment to environmental sustainability, Good Boy Organics focuses exclusively on certified organic products. Organic agriculture helps capture and retain carbon in the soil through the use of cover-cropping, green manure and compost. The use of petroleum-based fertilizers is prohibited in organic farming systems. Organic agriculture’s focus on soil-building improves soil moisture, so less energy is expended to water crops. Good Boy Organics’ Yellow Barn pasta sauce products are also certified Biodynamic®, an agricultural practice in which all inputs and outputs must be grown and re-used on the farm. This reduces carbon emissions from transportation and fosters self-sufficiency.

Despite all of these benefits of certified organic products and Biodynamic® agriculture, Good Boy Organics recognized that its own business operations produced harmful greenhouse gas emissions, including office space energy consumption, product shipping and business-related travel emissions. To enhance their environmental commitment, Good Boy Organics joined the Carbonfree® Business Partnership to neutralize those annual operational emissions they could not eliminate.

“I chose to partner with Carbonfund.org and their Carbonfree® Business Partnership program, because their values to environmental sustainability most closely match our own. They are well-known for their efforts helping companies like mine reduce and offset carbon emissions.” David Byrnes, Founder, Good Boy Organics

At Good Boy Organics headquarters, they maintain a recycling program for cardboard, paper, glass, plastic, and cans. All materials are printed on recycled paper with vegetable based inks. Their office uses energy-efficient lighting and low-heat strategies in order to save energy. These measure help to reduce the carbon footprint from their operations, and the Carbonfree® Business Partnership ensures that remaining emissions are mitigated through the support of Carbonfund.org’s clean air technology and carbon reduction projects.

When Carbonfund.org Foundation was created ten years ago with the motto “reduce what you can, offset what you can’t™”, we knew we were positioning ourselves as the last-in-line solution in sustainability plans. The climate change education component to our mission is a very important one, and a significant portion of our website is dedicated to providing ways that businesses and individuals can reduce their carbon footprint before considering carbon offsetting strategies.

This approach has attracted businesses that take seriously their responsibility to seek out recycling, reuse, energy efficiency and emissions reduction opportunities. Fireclay Tile, a California-based sustainable tile manufacturer, is a great example.

“We are scavengers at heart and scrappy when it comes to saving resources; therefore we are committed to finding new and innovative ways to reuse cast off materials, and to incorporate sustainability into all levels of our manufacturing process, explains Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile. “We chose to partner with Carbonfund.org simply because tile is heavy, and we wanted to offset the carbon footprint created by shipping our tile all over the world.”

Fireclay Tile’s Carbonfree® Business and Shipping program is a final step in the company’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Fireclay uses Carbonfund.org’s online business calculator to compute annual carbon emissions from office energy usage, business travel, and product shipping and delivery. The resulting offset donation supports forestry initiatives around the world that sequester carbon dioxide in formal third-party validated, verified and audited projects.

Fireclay’s unique process includes made-to-order tile using recycled materials and sustainable manufacturing practices in their California operations. Their recycled clay body boasts of over 70% recycled materials, which include post-consumer glass, granite dust, and porcelain from toilets collected to back water conservation efforts in the Bay Area. Fireclay’s glass tiles line is composed of 100% recycled glass from local window and solar panel production industries.

Fireclay maintains onsite recycling practices that include water reclamation at cutting and mixing stations, along with rainwater capture at their Aromas, CA factory. Glaze overspray is captured at each glazing station and is included with all scrap material and anything considered defective, then crushed into an aggregate for making the recycled clay. All orders are packaged for shipment using 100% recycled boxes, reused shipping crates, and sawdust from a local furniture manufacturer used to cushion shipments.

A fine example of “reduce what you can, offset what you can’t™”, Fireclay Tile is walking the walk, and Carbonfund.org is proud to assist in that last step.

How does a beautifully restored bed and breakfast with a strong commitment to environmental stewardship, located on the pristine Oregon Coast, overcome practical issues of its operation to achieve its sustainability goals?

One solution is to join the Carbonfree® Business Partnership program to neutralize all necessary, unavoidable operational emissions in a simple and affordable way. This solution has worked for The Craftsman Bed & Breakfast for the past six years.

"We chose to partner with Carbonfund.org because they have made alliances with companies we like doing business with," explains Michael Rech, Innkeeper. “They cooperate with businesses large and small on reforestation and renewable energy projects to meet the goals of companies offsetting their carbon footprint."

The Craftsman B&B maintains a strong “green philosophy” with a laundry list of environmental preservation initiatives, and energy and resource conservation measures. Lodging rates are discounted for guests that use public transportation, bike or drive an alternative fueled vehicle to the B&B. In addition, The Craftsman B&B is a certified green lodging property rated “3 leaves” by i stay green.com, and is listed in the Oregon Bed and Breakfast Guild's “Green Inspection Program” developed with Sustainable Travel International.

The Craftsman Bed & Breakfast offers its guests the chance to experience the beautiful Oregon Coast in style, grace and comfort, and to “park your car, relax and unplug.” Environmentally responsible travelers have the added assurance that their stay supports strong sustainability practices and Carbonfree® operations.

Over the years, Carbonfund.org has been honored to work with some of the most innovative and environmentally responsible organizations in the world. One of these partners is CREDO, a social change company that offers top-notch products and services, including mobile services and credit cards.

CREDO Mobile is the first mobile phone company in the U.S. to join Carbonfund.org’s Carbonfree® Partner Program, which estimates and offsets the carbon emissions produced from the company’s electricity usage, as well as the shipping of its mobile phones. CREDO Mobile also offsets the carbon footprint of its San Francisco headquarters.

“Carbonfund.org is a breath of fresh air, a cost-effective solution that’s easy for anyone,” states Michael Kieschnick, CEO and President of CREDO.

CREDO and Carbonfund.org currently are partnering on a unique credit card offering with an environmental component. A group of pre-approved CREDO customers will have the opportunity to apply for a CREDO credit card, and after the customer receives and uses the card, CREDO and Carbonfund.org will plant 25 trees on behalf of the customer and send them a $50 Restaurant.com dining reward.

As part of CREDO’s ongoing social and environmental commitments, a portion of all CREDO revenue is donated to progressive nonprofits working for women’s rights, the environment, equality, peace and social justice. Since 1985, CREDO has raised over $76 million for these groups, and their customers and activists help pick the groups and vote on how to distribute the donations.

The CREDO community also comprises a strong political force with more than 3 million activists who are passionate about making a difference in our world. CREDO makes it easier for them to have an impact by giving them simple ways to speak out on issues they believe in. As CREDO puts it, being green isn't just a fad – it’s part of CREDO’s identity, fighting the green fight with dollars, deeds and voices for the past 28 years. Carbonfund.org is proud to partner with CREDO to ensure the company’s environmental commitments are realized.